by Диана Дуэйн
An undertow of blinding power and irresistible light poured into her, over her, drowned her deep. She couldn't fight it. She didn't want to. Nita under-stood now the clear-burning transfiguration of Kit's small plain human face and body, for it was not the wizard who read the Book; it was the other way around. The silent Power that had written the Book reached through it now and read what life had written in her body and soul — joys, hopes, fears, and failings all together — then took her intent and read that too, turning it into fact. She was turning the bright pages without even thinking about it, finding the place in the Book that spoke of creation and rebellion and war among the stars — the words that had once before broken the terrible destroying storm01 death and darkness that the angry Starsnuffer had raised to break the ne*' made worlds and freeze the seas where life was growing, an eternity ago. am the wind that troubles the water," Nita said, whispering in the SpeeC"-The whisper smote against the windowed cliffs until they echoed again, anfl the clash and tumult of battle began to grow still as the wind rose at»e naming. "I am the - water, and the waves; I am the shore where the waves bt$ in rainbows; I am the sunlight that shines in the spray—".
The power rose with the rhythms of the old, old words, rose with the wip as all about her the earth and air and waters of the park began to remember what they were—matter and energy, created, indestructible, no matter what darkness lay over them. '7 am the trees that drink the light; I am the air of the green things' breathing; I am the stone that the trees break asunder; I am the molten heart of the world—"
"NO/" came his scream from beyond the wall of trees, hating, raging, desperate. But Nita felt no fear. It was as it had been in the Beginning; all his no's had never been able to stand against life's I Am. All around her trees and stones and flesh and metal burned with the power that burned her, self-awareness, which death can seem to stop but can never keep from happening, no matter how hard it tries. "Where will you go? To what place will you wander?" she asked sorrowfully, or life asked through her, hoping that the lost one might at last be convinced to come back to his allegiance. Of all creatures alive and otherwise, he had been and still was one of the mightiest. If only his stubborn anger would break, his power could be as great for light as for darkness—but it could not happen. If after all these weary eons he still had not realized the hopelessness of his position, that everywhere he went, life was there before him— Still she tried, the ancient words speaking her solemnly. "—in vale or on hilltop, still I am there—"
Silence, silence, except for the rising wind. All things seemed to hold their breath to hear the words; even the dark rider, erect again on his iron steed and bitter of face, ignoring the tumult around him. His eyes were only for Nita, for only her reading held him bound. She tried not to think of him, or of the little time remaining before the Moon went out, and gave herself over wholly to the reading. The words shook the air and the earth, blinding, burning. "—will you sound the sea's depth, or climb the mountain?
In air or in water, still I am there; Will the earth cover you? Will the night hide you? In deep or in darkness, still I am there; Will you kindle the nova, or kill the starlight? In lire or in deathcold, still I am there—" The Moon went out.
'red cried out soundlessly, and Nita felt the loss of light like a stab in the art The power fell away from her, quenched, leaving her small and cold ncl human and alone, holding in her hands a Book gone dark from lack of °°n"ght She and Kit turned desperately toward each other in a darkness Pidly becoming complete as the flowing blackness put out the last light of the city. Then came the sound of low, satisfied laughter and a single clang of a heavy hoof, stepping forward. Another clang. Another.
(Now,) Fred said suddenly, (now I understand what all that emitting was practice for. No beta, no gamma, no microwave or upper-wavelength ultraviolet or X-rays, is that all?) "Fred?" Kit said, but Fred didn't wait- He shot upward, blazing, a point of light like a falling star falling the wrong way, up and up until his brightness was as faint as one more unremarkable star. "Fred, where are you going?"
(To create a diversion,) his thought came back, getting fainter and fainter. (Nita, Kit—) They could catch no more clear thoughts, only a great wash of sorrow and loss, a touch of fear — and then brightness intolerable erupted in the sky as Fred threw his claudication open, emitting all his mass at once as energy, blowing his quanta. He could hardly have been more than halfway to the Moon, for a second or two later it was alight again, a blazing searing full such as no one had ever seen. There was no looking at either Fred's blast of light or at the Moon that lit trees and statues and the astounded face of the Starsnuffer with a light like a silver sun. The rider spent no more than a moment being astounded. Immediately he lifted his steel rod, pointing it at Fred this time, shouting in the Speech cold words that were a curse on all light everywhere, from time's beginning to its end. But Fred burned on, more fiercely, if possible. Evidently not even the Starsnuffer could quickly put out a white hole that was liberating all the bound-up energy of five or six blue-white giant stars at once.
"Nita, Nita, read!" Kit shouted at her. Through her tears she looked down at the Book again and picked up where she had left off. The dark rider was cursing them all in earnest now, knowing that another three lines in the-#00* would bring Nita to his name. She had only to pronounce it to cast him out into the unformed void beyond the universes, where he had been cast the first time those words were spoken.
Cabs and perytons screamed and threw themselves at the barrier in a 'ast wild attempt to break through, the statues leaped into the fray again, stone and flesh and metal clashed. Nita fell down into the bright power once more, crying, but reading in urgent haste so as not to waste the light Fred was giving himself to become.
As the power began again to read her, she could hear it reading Kit too, his voice matching hers as it had in their first wizardry, small and thin and brave, and choked with grief like hers. She couldn't stop crying, and the power burned in her tears too, an odd hot feeling, as she cried bitterly for Fred, rof Kit's Lotus, for everything horrible that had happened all that day — all l"* fair things skewed, all the beauty twisted by the dark Lone Power watching on his steed. If only there were some way he could be otherwise if he wanted to For here was his name, a long splendid flow of syllables in the Speech, wild and courageous in its own way — and it said that he had not always been so hostile; that he got tired sometimes of being wicked, but his pride and his fear of being ridiculed would never let him stop. Never, forever, said the symbol at the very end of his name, the closed circle that binds spells into an unbreakable cycle and indicates lives bound the same way. Kit was still reading. Nita turned her head in that nova moonlight and looked over her shoul-der at the one who watched- His face was set, and bitter stil], but weary. He knew he was about to be cast out again, frustrated again; and he knew that because of what he had bound himself into being, he would never know fulfillment of any kind. Nita looked back down to the reading, feeling sorry even for him, opened her mouth and along with Kit began to say his name. Don 't be afraid to make corrections! Whether the voice came from her memory or was a last whisper from the blinding new star far above, Nita never knew. But she knew what to do. While Kit was still on the first part of the name she pulled out her pen, her best pen that Fred had saved and changed. She clicked it open, The metal still tingled against her skin, the ink at the point still glittered oddly — the same glitter as the ink with which the bright Book was written, Nita bent quickly over the Book and, with the pen, in lines of light, drew from that final circle an arrow pointing upward, the way out, the symbol that said change could happen — if, only if — and together they finished the Starsnuf-fer's name in the Speech, said the new last syllable, made it real. The wind was gone. Fearfully Nita and Kit turned around, looked at Fifth Avenue — and found it empty. The creeping blackness was gone with the breaking of its master's magic and the sealing of the worldgate he had held open. Silent and somber, the statues stood among the bod
ies of the slain — crushed cabs and perytons, shattered trees — then one by one each paced off into the park or down Fifth Avenue, back to its pedestal and its long quiet Tegard of the city. The howl of sirens, lost for a while in the wind that had risen, now grew loud again. Kit and Nita stood unmoving as the trees ringing them moved away to their old places, sinking roots back into torn-up earth and raising branches to the burning Moon. Some ninety- three million miles
, the Sun had come quietly back to life. But its light would not reach for another eight minutes yet, and as Nita and Kit watched, slowly the star in the heavens faded, and the Moon faded with it — from daylight to silver fire, to steel- gray glow, to earthlight shimmer, to nothing. star went yellow, and red, and died. Nothing was left but a stunning, n y-wide aurora, great curtains and rays of rainbow light shivering and crack-mg all across the golden-glowing city night.
"He forgot the high-energy radiation again," Kit said, tears constricting his voice to a whisper. Nita closed the Book she held in her hands, now dark and ordinary-looking except for the black depths of its covers, the faint shimmer of starlight on page edges. "He always does," she said, scrubbing at her eyes, and then offered Kit the Book. He shook his head, and Nita dropped it into her backpack and slung it over her back again. "You think he'II take the chance?" she said. "Huh? Oh." Kit shook his head unhappily. "I dunno. Old habits die hard. If he wants to, . " Above them the Moon flicked on again, full and silver-bright through the blue and red shimmer of the auroral curtain. They stood gazing at it, a serene, remote brilliance, seeming no different than it had been an hour before, a night before, when everything had been as it should be. And now— "Let's get out of here," Nita said.
They walked out of the park unhindered by the cops and firemen who were already arriving in squad cars and fire trucks and paramedic ambulances. Evidently no one felt that two grade-school kids could possibly have anything to do with a street full of wrecked cabs and violently uprooted trees. As they crossed Fifth Avenue and the big mesh-sided Bomb Squad truck passed them, Nita bent to pick up a lone broken-off twig of oak, and stared at it sorrowfully. "There wasn't even anything left of him," she said as they walked east on Sixty-fourth, heading back to the Pan Am Building and the timeslide.
"Only the light," Kit said, looking up at the aurora. Even that was fading now. Silently they made their way to Grand Central and entered the Pan Am Building at the mezzanine level. The one guard was sitting with his back to them and his feet on the desk, reading the Post Kit went wearily over to one elevator, laid a hand on it, and spoke a word or three to it in the Speech. Its doors slid silently open, and they got in and headed upstairs.
The restaurant level was dark, for the place served only lunch, and there was no one to see them go back up to the roof. Kit opened the door at the top of the stairs, and together they walked out into peace and darkness and a wind off the ocean. A helicopter was moored in the middle of the pad with steel pegs and cables, crouching on its skids and staring at them with clear, sleepy, benevolent eyes. The blue high-intensity marker lights blazed about it like the circle of a protection spell. Nita looked away, not really wanting to think about spells or anything else to do with wizardry. The book said 11 would be hard. That I didn't mind. But I hurt! And where's the good part-Therc was supposed to be happiness too…
The bright Book was heavy on her back as she looked out across the nigh*-
All around, for miles and miles, was glittering light, brilliant motion, shining under the Moon; lights of a thousand colors gleaming from windows, glowing On streets, blazing from the headlights of cars. The city, breathing, burning, living the life they had preserved. Ten million lives and more. //something should happen to all that life—how terrible.'Nita gulped for control as she remembered Fred's words of just this morning, an eternity ago. And this was what being a wizard was about. Keeping terrible things from happening, even when it hurt.
Not just power, or control of what ordinary people couldn't control, or delight in being able to make strange things happen. Those were side effects—not the reason, not the purpose. She could give it up, she realized suddenly. In the recovery of the bright Book, she and Kit had more than repaid the energy invested in their training. If they chose to lay the Art aside, if she did, no one would say a word. She would be left in peace. Magic does not live in the unwilling soul.
Yet never to hear a tree talk again, or a stone, or a star …
On impulse Nita held out her hands and closed her eyes. Even without the rowan rod she could feel the moonfire on her skin as a tree might feel it. She could taste the restored sunlight that produced it, feel the soundless roar of the ancient atomic furnace that had burned just this way while her world was still a cloud of gas, nebulous and unformed. And ever so faintly she could taste a rainbow spatter of high-energy radiation, such as a white hole might leave after blowing its quanta.
She opened her eyes, found her hands full of moonlight that trembled like bright water, its surface sheened with fading aurora-glow. "All right," she said after a moment. "All right." She opened her hands to let the light run out. "Kit?" she said, saying his name in the Speech. He had gone to stand beside the helicopter and was standing with one hand laid against its side. It stared at him mutely. "Yeah,"ie said, and patted the cool metal, and left the chopper to rejoin Nita. "Iguess we pass the test"
They took their packs off and got out the materials necessary for the timeslide. When the lithium-cadmium battery and the calculator chip and the broken teacup-handle were in place, Kit and Nita started the spell — and without warning were again caught up by the augmenting power of the bright Book and plunged more quickly than they expected into the wizardry. It was like being on a slide, though they were the ones who held still, and the events of the day as seen from the top of the Pan Am Building rushed backward past them, a high-speed 3-D movie in reverse. Blinding white fire j*nd the nova Moon grew slowly in the sky, flared, and were gone. The Moon, briefly out, came on again. Darkness flowed backward through the suddenly °Pen worldgate, following its master on his huge dark mount, who also stcpped backward and vanished through the gate. Kit and Nita saw them-Sewes burst out of the roof door, blurred with speed; saw themselves run backward over the railing, a bright line of light pacing them as they plunged out into the dark air, dove backward through the gate, and vanished with it The Sun came up in the west and fled back across the sky. Men in coveralls burst out of the roof door and unpegged the Helicopter; two of them got into it and it took off backwards. Clouds streamed and boiled past, jets fell back-ward into LaGuardia. The Sun stood high—
The slide let them go, and Kit and Nita sat back gasping. "What time have you got?" Kit said when he had enough breath.
Nita glanced at her watch. "Nine forty-five." "Nine forty-five! But we were supposed to—"
"It's this Book, it makes everything work too well. At nine forty-five we were—" They heard voices in the stairwell, behind the closed door. Kit and Nita stared at each other. Then they began frantically picking up the items left from their spelling. Nita paused with the lithium-cadmium battery in her hand as she recognized one of those voices coming up the stairs. She reared back, took aim, and threw the heavy battery at the closed door, hard. crack!
Kit looked at her, his eyes wide, and understood. "Quick, behind there," he said. Nita ran to scoop up the battery, then ducked around after Kit and crouched down with him behind the back of the stairwell. There was a long, long pause before the door opened and footsteps could be heard on the gravel Kit and Nita edged around the side of the stairwell again to peer around the corner. Two small, nervous-looking figures were heading for the south facing rail in the bright sunlight. A dark- haired girl, maybe thirteen, wearing jeans and a shirt and a down vest; a dark-haired boyf small and a touch stocky, also in jeans and parka, twelve years old or so. The boy held a broken-off piece of antenna, and the girl held a peeled white stick, and they were being paced by a brilliant white spark like a will-o'-the-wisp plugged into too much c
urrent and about to blow out. " There arc no accidents,' " Kit whispered sadly.
The tears stung Nita's eyes again. "G'bye, Fred," she said softly in English, for fear the Speech should attract his attention, or hers.
Silently and unseen, Kit and Nita slipped through the door and went downstairs for the shuttle and the train home.
Timeheart
The walk home from the bus stop was weary and quiet. Three blocks from Nita's house, they reached the corner where their ways usually parted. Kit paused there, waiting for the light to change, though no traffic was in sight. "Call me tomorrow?" he said. What for? Nita felt like saying, for there were no more spells in the offing, and she was deadly tired. Still -. "It's your turn," she said.
"Huh. Right," The light changed, and Kit headed across the street to Nita's left. In the middle of the street he turned, walking backward. "We should call Tom and Carl," he shouted, sounding entirely exhausted.
"Yeah." The light changed again, in Nita's favor; Kit jumped up onto the sidewalk on the other side and headed south toward his place. Nita crossed east, watching Kit as she went. Though the look on his face was tired and sad, all the rest of his body wore the posture of someone who's been through so much fear that fear no longer frightens him. Why's he so afraid of getting beat up? Nita thought. Nobody in their right mind would mess with him.
In midstep she stopped, watching him walk away. How about that. How "bout that. He got what he asked for.
After a second she started walking home again. The weight at her back suddenly reminded her of something. (Kit!) she called silently, knowing he could hear even though he was now out of sight. (What about the Book?) (Hang on to it,) he answered. (We'll give it to the Advisories. Or they'll know what to do with it.)